DOCSLIB.ORG

Chapter 1: Introduction

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 1: Introduction (From Richards, The Tragic Sense of Life) In late winter of 1864, Charles Darwin received two folio volumes on radiolarians, a group of one-celled marine organisms that secreted siliceous skeletons of unusual geometry. The author, the young German biologist Ernst Haeckel, had himself drawn the figures for the extraordinary copper-etched illustrations that filled the second volume.1 The gothic beauty of the plates (see fig. 1) astonished Darwin, but he must also have been drawn to passages that applied his theory to construct the descent relations of these little known creatures. He replied to Haeckel that the Figure 1: Various species of Eucyrtidium, from Haeckel's Die Radiolarien, 1862. volumes "were the most magnificent works which I have ever seen, & I am proud to possess a copy from the author."2 Emboldened by his own initiative in contacting the famous scientist, Haeckel, a few days later, sent Darwin a newspaper clipping that described a meeting of the Society of 1Ernst Haeckel, Die Radioloarien. (Rhizopoda Radiaria.) Eine Monographie , 2 vols. (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1862). 2Charles Darwin to Ernst Haeckel (3 March 1864), in Correspondence of Ernst Haeckel, in the Haeckel Papers, Institut für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, Ernst-Haeckel-Haus, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena. Hereafter I will refer to this as "Haeckel Correspondence, Haeckel- Haus, Jena." The letter has recently been published in The Correpondence of Charles Darwin: vol. 12: 1864, ed. Frederick Burkhardt et al (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 61. 1 German Naturalists and Physicians at Stettin, which occurred during the previous autumn. The article gave an extended and laudatory account of Haeckel's lecture defending Darwin's theory.3 Darwin immediately replied in his second letter: "I am delighted that so distinguished a naturalist should confirm & expound my views; and I can clearly see that you are one of the few who clearly understands Natural Selection."4 Darwin recognized in the young Haeckel a biologist of considerable research ability and aesthetic sense, and, moreover, a thinker who obviously appreciated his theory. Ernst Haeckel (fig. 2) would become the foremost champion of Darwinism not only in Germany but throughout the world. Probably more people prior to the First World War learned of evolutionary theory through his voluminous publications than through any other source. His Naturliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (The natural history of creation, 1868) went through twelve German editions (1868-1919) and appeared in two Figure 2: Ernst Haeckel (standing) English translations as The History of Creation. and Nikolai Miklucho in 1867. Erik Nordenskiöld, in the first decades of the twentieth century, judged it "the chief 3Stettiner Zeitung (nr. 439), Sept. 20, 1863. The author began: "The first speaker [Haeckel] stepped up to the podium and delivered to rapt attention a lecture on Darwin's theory of creation. The lecture captivated the auditorium because of its illuminatingly clear presentation and extremely elegant form." The author then gave an extensive précis of the continents of the entire lecture. He concluded by reporting that "a huge applause followed this exciting lecture." 4Charles Darwin to Ernst Haeckel (9 March 1864), Haeckel Correspondence, Haeckel-Haus, Jena; Correspondence of Charles Darwin, 12: 63. 2 source of the world's knowledge of Darwinism."5 The crumbling detritus of this synthetic work can still be found scattered along the shelves of most used bookstores. Die Welträthsel (The world puzzle, 1899), which placed evolutionary ideas in a broader philosophical and social context, sold over 40,000 copies in the first year of its publication and well over ten times that during the next thirty year—and this only in the German editions.6 (By contrast, during the three decades between 1859 and 1890, Darwin's Origin of Species sold only some thirty-nine thousand copies in the six English editions.)7 By 1912, Die Welträthsel had been translated, according to Haeckel's own meticulous tabulations, into twenty-four languages, including Armenian, Chinese, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and Esperanto.8 The young Mohandas Gandhi had requested permission to render it into Gujarati; he believed it the scientific antidote to the deadly wars of religion plaguing India.9 Haeckel achieved many other popular successes, and, as well, produced more than twenty large, technical monographs on various aspects of systematic biology and evolutionary history. His studies of radiolarians, medusas, sponges, and siphonophores remain standard references today. These works not only informed a public, they drew to Haeckel's small university in Jena the largest share of 5Erik Nordenskiöld, The History of Biology (New York: Tudor Publishing, [1920-1924] 1936), p. 515. 6See the introduction to a modern edition of Haeckel's Die Welträtsel, ed. Olof Klohr (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961), pp. vii-viii. See also, Erika Krausse, “Wege zum Bestseller, Haeckels Werk im Lichte der Verlegerkorrespondenz: Die Korrespondenz mit Emil Strauss,” Der Brief als wissenschaftshistorische Quelle, ed. Erika Krausse (Berlin: Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, 2005), pp. 145-70 (publication details in pp. 165-66). 7See the introduction to The Origin of Species by Charles Dariwn: a Variorum Text, ed. Morse Peckham (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959), p. 24. 8Haeckel's charting is in an unnumbered document in the Haeckel Papers, Haeckel-Haus, Jena. 9Joseph McCabe to Ernst Haeckel (7 July 1908), Haeckel Correspondence, Haeckel-Haus, Jena. 3 Europe's great biologists of the next generation, among whom were the "golden" brothers Richard and Oscar Hertwig, Anton Dohrn, Hermann Fol, Eduard Strasburger, W. O. Kovalevsky, Nikolai Miklucho-Maclay, Arnold Lang, Richard Semon, Wilhelm Roux, and Hans Driesch. Haeckel’s influence stretched far into succeeding generations of biologists. Richard Goldschmidt, the great German developmental biologists who migrated to Berkley under the treacherous shadow of the Nazis in the 1930s, later recalled the revelatory impact reading Haeckel had made on his adolescent self: I found Haeckel’s history of creation one day and read it with burning eyes and soul. It seemed that all problems of heaven and earth were solved simply and convincingly; there was an answer to every question which troubled the young mind. Evolution was the key to everything and could replace all the beliefs and creeds which one was discarding. There were no creation, no God, no heaven and hell, only evolution and the wonderful law of recapitulation which demonstrated the fact of evolution to the most stubborn believer in creation.10 Haeckel gave currency to the idea of the "missing link" between apes and man; and in the early 1890s, Eugene Dubois, inspired by Haeckel=s ideas, actually found its remains where the great evolutionist had predicted, in the Dutch East Indies.11 Haeckel 10Richard Goldschmidt, Portraits from Memory: Recollections of a Zoologist (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1956), p. 35. 11Haeckel speculated that the transition from ape to man via "pithecanthropus alalus" (ape-man without speech) took place in the area of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java. Inspired by Haeckel, Eugene Dubo is searched these regions while stationed there as a physician in the French Army. Amazingly, in 1890 and 1891, he discovered in Java the remains of what became known as Homo erectus, certainly the best candidate for the missing link. See Eugene Dubois, Pithecanthropus erectus, eine menschenähnliche Übergangsform aus Jave (Batavia: Landesdruckerei, 1894); and "Pithecanthropus Erectus--A form from the Ancestral Stock of Mankind," Annual Report, Smithsonain Institution (1898): 445-59. 4 invented ecology, identified thousands of new animal species, established an entire kingdom of creatures, the Protista, worked out the complicated reproductive cycles of many marine invertebrates, and performed experiments and devised theories in embryology that set the stage for the ground-breaking research by his students Roux and Driesch. His "biogenetic law"—that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny—dominated biological research for some fifty years, serving as a powerful research tool that joined new areas into a common field for the application of evolutionary theory. The "law," rendered in sepia tone, can still be found bracing contemporary textbooks in embryology (see fig. 3).12 Haeckel, however, has not been well loved—or, more to the point, well understood—by historians of science. E. S. Russell, whose judgment may usually be trusted, regarded Haeckel's principal theoretical work, Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, as "representative Figure 3: Illustration of the biogenetic law (after Haeckel) not so much of Darwinian as of from Moore, Before we are Born: Basic Embryology and Birth Defects, 1989. 12Figure 3 comes from a standard medical school textbook, Keith L Moore, Before We are Born: Basic Embryology and Birth Defects, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1989), p. 70. Richardson and Keuck have listed about a dozen text books from the 1980s to the present that have used Haeckel’s embryo illustrations. See Michael Richardson and Gerhard Keuck,” Haeckel’s ABC of Evolution and Developmen,” Biological Review 77 (2002): 493-528; the list is on p. 515. 5 pre-Darwinian thought." "It was," he declared, "a medley of dogmatic materialism, idealistic morphology, and evolutionary theory"13 Gavin De Beer, a leading embryologist of the
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Carl Gegenbaur – Wikipedia
    Carl Gegenbaur – Wikipedia http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gegenbaur aus Wikipedia, der freien Enzyklopädie Carl Gegenbaur (* 21. August 1826 in Würzburg; † 14. Juni 1903 in Heidelberg) war ein deutscher Arzt, einer der bedeutendsten Wirbeltiermorphologen des 19. Jahrhunderts und einer der Väter der Evolutionsmorphologie, eines modernen Begriffs von Walter J. Bock und Dwight D. Davis. 1 Leben 2 Wissenschaftliche Leistung 2.1 Das „Kopf-Problem“ 3 Verhältnis Carl Gegenbaur und Ernst Haeckel 4 Nach Gegenbaur benannte Taxa Carl Gegenbaur 5 Ausgewählte Arbeiten 6 Weiterführende Literatur 7 Weblinks 8 Einzelnachweise Er war der Sohn des Justizbeamten Franz Joseph Gegenbaur (1792–1872) und dessen Ehefrau Elisabeth Karoline (1800–1866), geb. Roth. Von seinen sieben Geschwistern verstarben vier sehr jung; sein um drei Jahre jüngerer Bruder wurde nur 25 Jahre und seine um 13 Jahre jüngere Schwester 38 Jahre alt.[1] 1838 besuchte er die Lateinschule und von 1838 bis 1845 in Würzburg das Gymnasium. Schon zu seiner Schulzeit führt er Naturstudien in der Umgebung von Würzburg und bei Verwandten im Odenwald (Amorbach) durch. Er beschäftigt sich weiterführend mit Pflanzen, Tieren, Gesteinen, legte Sammlungen an, fertigte Zeichnungen und führte erste Tiersektionen durch.[2] Politische Hintergründe: Bayern wurde 1806 unter dem Minister Maximilian Carl Joseph Franz de Paula Hieronymus Graf von Montgelas (1759–1838) zu einem der führenden Mitglieder im Rheinbund und Bündnispartner von Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). Für seine Bündnistreue wurde im Frieden von Pressburg Bayern zum Königreich durch den französischen Kaiser aufgewertet und Herzog Maximilian IV. (1756–1825) am 1. Januar 1806 in München als Maximilian I. Joseph zum ersten König Bayerns erhoben.
    [Show full text]
  • Nature I I I
    NATURE I I I the refracted ray normally, and reflects it back again to the noticed as being flattened at the poles, <hus corroborating observing telescope. This form of liquid prism is well adapted previous observations. "for usc in an astronotnical spectroscope of either the col11- The observations of ?.Iercury, which are illustrated by pound or the objective type in connection with a polar heliostat, , twenty drawings, indicate a comparatively greater amount of ... the heliostat is arranged to send the beam clown the detail than one would expect. The drawings show that the polar axis instead of up, as is usually clone." The author movements of the surface markings are really the result of suggests that the instrument must be mounted so as to he rotation, the value of this latter being about thirty-three to entirely free from any vibration. Prof. Rowland continues his thirty-five hours. Herr Brenner says with regard to the longer valuable tables of solar spectrum, wave· lengths extending here period suggested by Schiaparelli, that " so far, I am perfectly from 3133 to 3259. Prof. B. Hasselberg's researches on the certain that a rotation of about three months is quite out of the spectra of metals are translated from the original, the metals here question.'' The drawings, he further remarks, indicate on single dealt with being cobalt and nickel. The author points out the days distinct forward motions of the spots, the different appear­ great difficulty of eliminating impurities, and states that the iron ances of the planet's disc at various times, the undoubted polar spectrum of Kaiser and Runge is to a large extent con­ spots, and, further, the circumstance that the markings seen by taminated with foreign lines, which fact has led him to make him do not always assume the same positions as those seen by iron comparisons from his own photographs.
    [Show full text]
  • Concepts of Gender Difference in Genetics Satzinger, Helga 2016
    Repositorium für die Geschlechterforschung Concepts of Gender Difference in Genetics Satzinger, Helga 2016 https://doi.org/10.25595/114 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Sammelbandbeitrag / collection article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Satzinger, Helga: Concepts of Gender Difference in Genetics, in: Müller-Wille, Staffan; Brandt, Christina (Hrsg.): Heredity explored : between public domain and experimental science, 1850-1930 (London: The MIT Press, 2016), 189-209. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25595/114. Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY 4.0 Lizenz (Namensnennung) This document is made available under a CC BY 4.0 License zur Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz finden (Attribution). For more information see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de www.genderopen.de 8 Concepts of Gender Difference in Genetics Helga Satzinger Genetics is a quantitative subject. It deals with ratios, with measurements, and with the geometri- cal relationships of chromosomes. —Alfred Sturtevant and George Beadle (1939) 1 Alfred Sturtevant (1891–1970) and George Beadle (1903–1989), two prominent repre- sentatives of Thomas Hunt Morgan’s school of Drosophila genetics, started their textbook, An Introduction to Genetics (1939), with the claim that genetics was “a math- ematically formulated subject that is logically complete and self-contained.” 2 The first chapter is entitled “Sex Chromosomes.” It begins with the
    [Show full text]
  • Boveri's Long Experiment: Sea Urchin Merogones and the Establishment
    NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Dev Biol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2009 February 1. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptPublished NIH-PA Author Manuscript in final edited NIH-PA Author Manuscript form as: Dev Biol. 2008 February 1; 314(1): 1±11. Boveri’s long experiment: Sea urchin merogones and the establishment of the role of nuclear chromosomes in development Manfred D. Laubichlera and Eric H. Davidsonb,* a School of Life Sciences, Centers for Biology and Society and Social Dynamics and Complexity, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-4501, USA b Division of Biology 156-29, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA Abstract Theodor Boveri’s major intellectual contribution was his focus on the causality of nuclear chromosomal determinants for embryological development. His initial experimental attempt to demonstrate that the character of the developing embryo is determined by nuclear rather than cytoplasmic factors was launched in 1889. The experimental design was to fertilize enucleate sea urchin eggs with sperm of another species that produces a distinguishably different embryonic morphology. Boveri’s “hybrid merogone” experiment provided what he initially thought was empirical evidence for the nuclear control of development. However, for subtle reasons, the data were not interpretable and the experiment was repeated and contested. At the end of his life, Boveri was finally able to explain the technical difficulties that had beset the original experiment. However, by 1902 Boveri had carried out his famous polyspermy experiments, which provided decisive evidence for the role of nuclear chromosomal determinants in embryogenesis. Here we present the history of the hybrid merogone experiment as an important case of conceptual reasoning paired with (often difficult) experimental approaches.
    [Show full text]
  • Nucleic Acids Historical View
    1. PŘEDNÁŠKA 2012-13 Nucleic acids Historical view Emil Paleček Institute of Biophysics, Acad. Sci. CR v.v.i., 612 65 Brno Czech Republic The Road to DNA started in Brno G.J. Mendel F. Miescher 1866 Tübingen 1871 NUCLEIC ACIDS Chemical nature and spatial organization Biological function STRUCTURE F. MIESCHER, TÜBINGEN G. J. MENDEL, BRNO 1871 1866 MIESCHER MENDEL C K MATHEWS , K E van HOLDE, BIOCHEMISTRY, 1990 Timeline of DNA 1865: Gregor Mendel discovers through breeding experiments with peas that traits are inherited based on specific laws (later to be termed ―Mendel‘s laws‖). By mentioning Elements of Heredity he predicts DNA and genes (published 1866) 1866: Ernst Haeckel proposes that the nucleus contains the factors responsible for the transmission of hereditary traits. 1869: Friedrich Miescher isolates DNA/NUCLEIN for the first time. 1871: The first publications describing DNA (nuclein) by F Miescher, Felix Hoppe-Seyler, and P. Plosz are printed. 1882: Walther Flemming describes chromosomes and examines their behavior during cell division. 1884–1885: Oscar Hertwig, Albrecht von Kölliker, Eduard Strasburger, and August Weismann independently provide evidence that the cell‘s nucleus contains the basis for inheritance. 1889: Richard Altmann renames nuclein to nucleic acid. 1900: Carl Correns, Hugo de Vries, and Erich von Tschermak rediscover Mendel’s Laws. 1902: T Boveri and W Sutton postulate that the heredity units (called genes as of 1909) are located on chromosomes. 1902–1909: A Garrod proposes that genetic defects result in the loss of enzymes and hereditary metabolic diseases. 1909: Wilhelm Johannsen uses the word gene to describe units of heredity.
    [Show full text]
  • Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922) [1]
    Published on The Embryo Project Encyclopedia (https://embryo.asu.edu) Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922) [1] By: Brind'Amour, Katherine Garcia, Benjamin Keywords: Biography [2] Sperm [3] Ova [4] Fertilization [5] Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig [6] contributed to embryology [7] through his studies of cells in development and his discovery that only one spermatozoon is necessary to fertilize an egg [8]. He was born 21 April 1849 to Elise Trapp and Carl Hertwig in Hessen, Germany. After his brother Richard was born the family moved to Muhlhausen in Thuringen where the boys were educated. The two brothers later attended the university in Jena from 1868 to 1888 and studied under Ernst Haeckel [9], who later convinced Hertwig to leave chemistry and pursue medicine. Hertwig became an assistant professor of anatomy at Jena in 1878 and full professor three years later. He was the first chair of both cytology [10] and embryology [7] in Berlin from 1888 to 1921 and director of the new Anatomical-Biological Institute there. Hertwig also became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin and the Leopoldina Academy in Jena. Hertwig initially devoted himself to studying morphological development, a topic on which he wrote a prize essay at Jena in 1871 and a doctoral dissertation at Bonn in 1872. He switched to studying the nature of the fertilization [11] process, however, after reading Leopold Auerbach’s Organologische Studien. The two main views in this field at the time were that either the spermatozoa [12] made contact with the egg [8] and stimulated development via the transmission of a subtle mechanical vibration (as proposed by Gottlieb-Wilhelm Bischoff), or that the spermatozoa [12] penetrated the egg [8] and mixed their chemical components with the egg [8] yolk [13].
    [Show full text]
  • Epigenetics: Origins and Implications for Cancer Epidemiology
    Medical Hypotheses 74 (2010) 377–382 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Medical Hypotheses journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mehy Epigenetics: Origins and implications for cancer epidemiology Melissa S. Nise, Puran Falaturi, Thomas C. Erren * Institute and Policlinic for Occupational and Social Medicine, University of Cologne, Kerpener Strasse 62, 50937 Cologne-Lindenthal, Germany article info summary Article history: This paper provides information on the evolution of the ‘epigenetics’ concept since Aristotle and draws Received 24 August 2009 attention to the importance of epigenetic implications for cancer epidemiology in the years to come. Accepted 6 September 2009 Clearly, to understand origins of the concept of epigenetics, it is worthwhile to consider historical argu- ments associated with evolution. Equally clearly, in the last half of the 20th century, great advances in the understanding of epigenetics and, more specifically, great advances in the understanding of epigenetics in cancer have been made. However, reaping the full benefits of epigenetics lies beyond the predominant experimental studies of today. In general, epigenetics opens many doors in the field of cancer, but it also adds another level of complex, inter-related, and multi-dimensional information to research, and to its interpretation. Overall, future cancer studies should consider, or at least be sensitive to, epigenetic effects and mechanisms. Moving the focus beyond ‘pristine’ inheritance via DNA alone, cancer epidemiology investigating epigenetic exposures such as environmental factors (exposure to heavy metals, air pollu- tion, arsenic and other toxins), dietary patterns (starvation, famine, contamination), and lifestyle habits (smoking, level of physical activity, and BMI) in populations has the prospect to significantly benefit future cancer prevention and treatment schemes.
    [Show full text]
  • Friedrich Miescher and the Discovery of DNA
    Developmental Biology 278 (2005) 274–288 www.elsevier.com/locate/ydbio Review Friedrich Miescher and the discovery of DNA Ralf Dahm* Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Department 3 – Genetics, Spemannstr. 35/III, D-72076 Tu¨bingen, Germany Received for publication 5 October 2004, revised 17 November 2004, accepted 20 November 2004 Available online 21 December 2004 Abstract Over the past 60 years, DNA has risen from being an obscure molecule with presumed accessory or structural functions inside the nucleus to the icon of modern bioscience. The story of DNA often seems to begin in 1944 with Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty showing that DNA is the hereditary material. Within 10 years of their experiments, Watson and Crick deciphered its structure and yet another decade on the genetic code was cracked. However, the DNA story has already begun in 1869, with the young Swiss physician Friedrich Miescher. Having just completed his education as a physician, Miescher moved to Tqbingen to work in the laboratory of biochemist Hoppe-Seyler, his aim being to elucidate the building blocks of life. Choosing leucocytes as his source material, he first investigated the proteins in these cells. However, during these experiments, he noticed a substance with unexpected properties that did not match those of proteins. Miescher had obtained the first crude purification of DNA. He further examined the properties and composition of this enigmatic substance and showed that it fundamentally differed from proteins. Due to its occurrence in the cells’ nuclei, he termed the novel substance bnucleinQ—a term still preserved in today’s name deoxyribonucleic acid.
    [Show full text]
  • Than the Law of Facies Correlation
    Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach (1871–1918 part of the German em- pire). Johannes’ father was the local minister who had a keen interest in the natural sciences and planted this seed in his son’s mind. At age 12, young Johannes met the geology profes- sor Adolf von Koenen (1837–1915) of Göttingen, who took him along when mapping the Thuringian Rhön Mountains. At age 15, Johannes started to visit university classes of the fa- mous and, later in life, controversially disputed biologist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) at the nearby university in Jena. Haeckel was a prominent follower of Darwin who spread evolutionary theory in Germany and the continent. These experiences were the sparks that inspired Johannes’ interest in studying biology and geology. However, a major problem for him was an unidentified illness that included severe headaches that pre- vented him from passing the abitur, the precondition to univer- sity studies. Haeckel’s intervention with the Duke of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach allowed Walther to study natural sci- ences at the university in Jena without the school-exit exam. He started his studies in 1879, concentrated on biology, and finished in 1882 with a Ph.D. in zoology under Haeckel and the anatomist Oscar Hertwig (1849–1922). During his time in Walther as young professor in Jena 1895 around Jena, Walther also met his lifelong friend, Carl Duisberg (1861– the time of publication of his facies law. 1935), a chemist who would later become an influential indus- trialist and the head of Bayer and IG Farben. It is noteworthy that Walther did not join a student dueling corporation, which Johannes Walther (1860–1937): was quite common during those days, but was one of the cofounders of the student society of natural sciences at the university in Jena.
    [Show full text]
  • The Anatomy of Human Embryos and the Norms of Wilhelm His
    Producing Development: The Anatomy of Human Embryos and the Norms of Wilhelm His NICK HOPWOOD In 1875 the Göttingen anatomist Wilhelm Krause described what was briefly the most famous but soon became the most notorious human embryo of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It was presented as deciding a heated controversy over embryology and evolution, but its status was debated in dozens of publications—until in 1882 anatomists finally agreed that it was the embryo, not of a human being at all, but of a bird. I shall reconstruct the remarkable history of Krause’s embryo, but my larger concern is with the enterprise to which it fell victim: the making of modern human embryology. This was the achievement, above I am very grateful, for comments on earlier versions of this paper, to Alberto Cambrosio, Adele Clarke, Silvia De Renzi, Tim Horder, Chris Lawrence, Ilana Löwy, Lynn Nyhart, Ronan O’Rahilly, Cornelie Usborne, and the referees for this journal; to Claire Cross for arranging interlibrary loans; and to Chris Carter for photography. I have been helped enormously by the responses of audiences at conferences in Manchester, Göttingen, and Braunschweig, and at seminars at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, the Cambridge Department of History and Philosophy of Science, the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. For generous advice on, and assistance with, archival material, I thank H. Kurz and D. Sasse (Anatomisches Museum Basel), M. Steinmann (Universitätsbibliothek Basel), D. Kress (Staatsarchiv Basel), Erika Krauße (Ernst-Haeckel- Haus Jena), Christiane Groeben (Stazione Zoologica di Napoli), H.
    [Show full text]
  • Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922) [1]
    Published on The Embryo Project Encyclopedia (https://embryo.asu.edu) Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig (1849-1922) [1] By: Brind'Amour, Katherine Garcia, Benjamin Keywords: Biography [2] Sperm [3] Ova [4] Fertilization [5] Wilhelm August Oscar Hertwig [6] contributed to embryology [7] through his studies of cells in development and his discovery that only one spermatozoon is necessary to fertilize an egg [8]. He was born 21 April 1849 to Elise Trapp and Carl Hertwig in Hessen, Germany. After his brother Richard was born the family moved to Muhlhausen in Thuringen where the boys were educated. The two brothers later attended the university in Jena from 1868 to 1888 and studied under Ernst Haeckel [9], who later convinced Hertwig to leave chemistry and pursue medicine. Hertwig became an assistant professor of anatomy at Jena in 1878 and full professor three years later. He was the first chair of both cytology [10] and embryology [7] in Berlin from 1888 to 1921 and director of the new Anatomical-Biological Institute there. Hertwig also became a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin and the Leopoldina Academy in Jena. Hertwig initially devoted himself to studying morphological development, a topic on which he wrote a prize essay at Jena in 1871 and a doctoral dissertation at Bonn in 1872. He switched to studying the nature of the fertilization [11] process, however, after reading Leopold Auerbach’s Organologische Studien. The two main views in this field at the time were that either the spermatozoa [12] made contact with the egg [8] and stimulated development via the transmission of a subtle mechanical vibration (as proposed by Gottlieb-Wilhelm Bischoff), or that the spermatozoa [12] penetrated the egg [8] and mixed their chemical components with the egg [8] yolk [13].
    [Show full text]
  • By Edward Stuart Russell [1]
    Published on The Embryo Project Encyclopedia (https://embryo.asu.edu) Form and Function (1916), by Edward Stuart Russell [1] By: Ulett, Mark A. Keywords: Morphology [2] In 1916, at the age of twenty-nine, Edward Stuart Russell [4] published his first major work, Form and Function [3]: a Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology. This book has maintained wide readership among scientists and historians since its initial publication, and today is generally recognized as the first modern, sustained study of the history of morphology [5]. In particular, Form and Function [3] incorporates an extensive theoretical analysis of the relationship between embryological studies and comparative morphology [5] in the nineteenth century. Russell employs a history-of-ideas approach in this book, describing the most significant morphologists and their theories. The first chapters of Form and Function [3] discuss early investigators into morphology [5], such as Hippocrates [6] and Aristotle [7]. The book concludes with a discussion of the opening decade of the twentieth century and the works of Russell’s contemporaries, such as Ernst Mehnert [8], Hans Driesch [9], Oscar Hertwig, and Albert Oppel [10]. The broad structure of these chapters, and thus Russell’s overall history, is organized into three main “currents”: a functionalist approach, which includes evolutionary morphologists; a transcendental or idealistic morphology [5]; and finally a focus on experimental embryology [11] or “causal morphology [5],” to use Russell’s terminology. Consequently the overall framework of Form and Function [3] explains the emerging importance of embryology [11] for an understanding of biological form. The first, functionalist, current began in the works of Aristotle [7] and, much later, Georges Cuvier [12].
    [Show full text]